


Empirical Studies

by satonawall



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 12:36:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4263504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satonawall/pseuds/satonawall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Santana and Brittany slowly learn that they have way less straight friends than they thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empirical Studies

**Author's Note:**

> Could be construed as somewhat Rachel-unfriendly; for the record, I like her, I just would think she would be the exception to prove the rule.
> 
> Also, includes large amounts of OCs. You have been warned.

**Tina**

“Are we still on for those drinks after the play or are you already such a big star that you need to sign Playbills for two hours?”

On the other end of the line, Tina laughed. “Santana, it’s off-off-off-off Broadway. There are no Playbills.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Yeah.” There was a pause. To most people, it would have meant nothing, but Santana wasn’t most people. She could still smell weakness. “Lucy and I will meet you at the bar. I’ll text you the address.”

As soon as they ended the call, Santana began racking her brain for anyone named Lucy that she’d know Tina knew. No one came to mind, and she was reaching for her phone to text Brittany and ask when her boss walked in and pushed the matter out of Santana’s mind.

—

She did remember it again when they took their seats in the theatre, though.

“Who’s Lucy?”

“Quinn doesn’t like it when you call her that,” Brittany said.

“No, I mean- I asked Tina if she could make it to drinks after the show, and she said she’d bring Lucy.”

“Oh.” Brittany’s smile widened. “Tina has a crush on her. If she’s coming, she probably has a crush on Tina, too.”

Santana blinked. “Tina’s-”

Before she had the time to finish the sentence (not that she even knew what she wanted to say), the lights dimmed and the curtain began to rise.

—

The bar Tina had chosen was tiny and ominously empty, but at least Santana’s gin and tonic tasted as it was supposed to, and they had paper umbrellas, which was really everything Brittany wanted in a drink.

They had to wait only for ten minutes until Tina entered in the arm of a bubbly and loud woman who was just giggling at something Tina had probably just said.

“That was the dancer with the best splits,” Brittany whispered in her ear. “I knew Tina would have good taste.”

Santana took a sip of her drink so that she wouldn’t need to answer.

“Hi!” Tina and Lucy had reached their table. “Brittany and Santana, this is Lucy, Lucy, this is-”

“Brittany and Santana,” Lucy finished for her, her hand already extended to shake Brittany’s hand, and then Santana’s. “Tina has told me so much of you.”

“Has she?”

“Don’t mind her,” Brittany said brightly. “She’s always like that when she’s surprised.”

“I’m not!”

“You two are absolutely adorable,” Lucy said. “Tina said you’ve been together since high school.”

“Mostly,” Santana said.

“She slept with our best friend,” Brittany said. “It’s okay, though, we were on a break.”

Lucy’s laugh sounded even louder up close. Santana hadn’t thought that possible.

“But we didn’t come here to talk about us,” Brittany added, turning to Santana. “We’re supposed to interrogate them.”

“I hope not interrogate, really,” Lucy said.

“Don’t give them any ideas.” Tina smiled. “I’ve told you about glee club. They were there, too.”

“Mr Schuester wouldn’t get even Lord Tubbington to confess anything, and he always tries to tell everyone he murdered Abraham Lincoln.”

Santana put her hand on Brittany’s thigh under the table. “Oh, the ideas were definitely there already. So, how did you two meet?”

This time, at least, it was Tina who laughed. Then again, Lucy was the one to speak.

“I noticed her at the auditions to the play, I mean, who wouldn’t? But I didn’t get the chance to talk to her until when we both reached for the last bottle of our favourite shampoo at the supermarket and bonded over how difficult it is to find hair care products that don’t ruin our hair.”

“A real meet cute.” If Tina wanted to come off sarcastic, she really should stop smiling quite so widely.

“She was nice enough to let me have the shampoo,” Lucy said. “I figured the least I could do would be to offer her dinner. And the rest is history.”

After such grand words, she excused herself to get her and Tina drinks, and Tina managed to redirect the conversation to the play and somehow keep it away from prying personal information for the rest of the evening.

“It was really nice to meet you,” Lucy said as Santana and Brittany were leaving the cab by the end of it.

“It was really nice to meet you, too,” Brittany said. “I think we’ll meet again. Tina’s really bad at break-ups so unless you get super addicted to video games, she will probably keep you for a long time.”

Tina was blushing as they drove off, but Santana could tell that whatever consequences she was afraid of, they wouldn’t materialise; Lucy had practically lit up at Brittany’s words.

“Well,” she said as they’d got up to their flat and were cuddling on the sofa, “I have to admit, I didn’t see that one coming.”

“I definitely did.” Brittany drew circles around Santana’s knee with her thumb. “I thought about making her my Quinn but Tina’s more liquid than ice.”

“Here’s yet again one thing at which you’re smarter than I am,” Santana said with a laugh.

—  
  


**Quinn**

“I definitely saw this one coming,” Santana said gleefully as they peeked from behind the pillar. “Straight girls who’re actually straight stop the moment a guy’s not watching.”

“I saw it coming, too,” Brittany said. “But only with one meaning.”

Santana laughed as she swatted at Brittany’s arm.

When she peeked again, Quinn and her mystery woman were finished with their hug and were simply standing far too close for just-friends, the mystery woman’s hand on Quinn’s arm in a way that probably seemed platonic to passers-by but couldn’t have fooled Santana even if she’d been looking at it in the dark with Quinn’s contacts on.

“Are they still being cute?” Brittany asked. “I like her already. Quinn should have a lot of cute.”

“They’ve moved on to in-your-face clandestine eye sex.”

Brittany grinned. “She deserves that, too.”

“You know what else she deserves,” Santana said as she took Brittany’s hand and pulled her away from behind the pillar. “The classic ‘annoying friends’ rom com moment. Let’s make that happen.”

“That’s my favourite intercom.”

Quinn didn’t notice them since her back was to them, and the woman probably had no idea who they were, so by the time Santana said, loudly, “Quinn! So good to see you!” and threw her arm around Quinn’s shoulders, it was already too late for the whole song and dance with stepping away from each other and dropping their hands.

Not that they didn’t try. It was kind of precious.

“Santana, Brittany,” Quinn said, and if Santana hadn’t been best friends with her for all of high school, she might have bought the nonchalant act, “so good to see you. How have you been?”

“Busy,” Santana said truthfully, and added, slightly less truthfully, “Being girlfriends is so high maintenance, you should know.”

“You have to do all the maintenance yourself,” Brittany told Quinn’s mystery woman with a very serious face. “The janitor only has a role in the movies.”

“You should know.” Quinn ignored them (the problem with having been Quinn’s high school best friend and exploiting the knowledge was that they had also been Quinn’s best friends; she could see when they were being jerks on purpose) and addressed the woman. “Stacey, these are Brittany and Santana, my high school friends from glee and cheerleading. Brittany, Santana, this is Stacey.”

Up close, Stacey was not quite what Santana had thought Quinn would go for. True, the coat hanging off her shoulders was designer and her hair was immaculate, but what Santana hadn’t seen peeking from between the coat and the black, well-kept leather boots were skinny jeans, with a few stains on them to boot, and although the (Alexander McQueen, thank you, Kurt Hummel, you were good for something) scarf hid it well enough, the shirt underneath the coat was tested and trusted lesbian flannel. Not to mention that the scarf had skulls in it.

Sure, she was gorgeous, and if it wasn’t for Brittany Santana might have been a little jealous, but-

Well, you learnt new things about your friends every day.

“She didn’t say who you are,” Brittany said. “Does that mean she doesn’t know? Because if she doesn’t, you should know that Santana has razorblades in her hair and she gets protective of her friends so you should think twice about hurting Quinn.”

Stacey laughed and Quinn looked like she was doing her best not to find them even a little bit funny.

“Let’s do this again,” she said. “Brittany, Santana, this is my girlfriend, Stacey. Stacey, these are Brittany and Santana, my annoying friends I have told you about _who_ are currently very _busy_ and are going to have to _leave_ us _alone_ in a _second_.”

“A second passed already.” Brittany beamed at Stacey. “Quinn’s not actually a witch.”

“I know,” Stacey told her before turning to Quinn. “I like them. Can we have them over for dinner sometime?”

Santana filed the casual implication away for later pondering. “Yes, Quinn have us over for dinner. Your girlfriend _likes_ us.”

She took great pleasure in seeing how deeply Quinn was blushing, even as she muttered, “Well, I hate you, so that cancels it out.”

Santana took Brittany’s hand, both of them sensing that they were nearing the limit where teasing was no longer funny.

“We’ll leave you now,” she said. “And Stacey, my girl Brittany was exactly right about the razorblades. Just something to keep in mind.”

“Noted,” Stacey said and waved goodbye to them before turning back to Quinn.

“Sorry about that,” they heard Quinn say as they were walking away.

“It’s okay,” Stacey said. “I feel very approved of right now. C’mon, let’s go home. We can stop for ice cream on the way.”

“Mmmm.” Brittany stepped closer to Santana. “I think Quinn is getting both the cute and the sex. I like her back.”

Santana grasped her hand, having made sure no one was looking at them right then. “I like her too. But I’m still going to see how long I can stretch Quinn’s patience by being insufferable about it.”

Brittany laughed and did a little jump in the air. “Of course.”

—  
  


**Mercedes**

“So,” Santana settled more comfortably on the sofa and smiled at Mercedes’s picture on the screen, “when are we going to see you next time, big star?

Mercedes smiled and took a sip of her water. “I’ll see what I can do. My publicist has been thinking a talk show appearance is in order, I can see what I can do about making that New York.”

“Well, you better be able to do a whole damn lot, because Brittany misses you and she isn’t the only one.”

At the other end of the line, Mercedes grinned. “Awww, I miss her too. And you as well, Santana.” Her face took on an expression Santana couldn’t quite read. “And I kind of wanted to talk to you about something private.”

Santana raised her eyebrow, but Brittany chose that exact moment to waltz home and throw herself at Santana in greeting, and she got a little distracted.

When they both turned to Mercedes again, she was smiling and told Brittany wistfully that she missed them.

—

Through Mercedes’s force of will or not, she got an upcoming appearance on a talk show that filmed in New York. Since it was, strictly speaking, work and she had her publicist and assistant with her and probably a slew of other people with her (such was the trying life of an established pop star; Santana was so glad she had gone into law instead), Mercedes was staying in a hotel, but she did promise to ditch her entourage for an evening to come have dinner at Brittany and Santana’s.

“I thought you said you’d come alone,” Santana said when she opened the door.

“I said I wouldn’t bring my people.” Mercedes stepped in quickly, and the – gorgeous, gorgeous – woman who’d stood behind her followed. “This is Maria.”

She didn’t qualify any further, but the shy duck of her head was telling.

Santana, valiantly battling both her surprise and her surprise at her surprise (after Tina and Quinn, she probably should have expected it), turned to Maria.

“Nice to meet you.”

Up close, Maria was even more beautiful. She had twinkling brown eyes that were looking warmly at Santana, an intricate natural hairdo with a few small flowers tucked in and a curvy body that was draped in a softly-cut dress that definitely did nothing to disassociate her from Tolkien’s elves in Santana’s mind.

“You must be Santana,” Maria said. “Nice to meet you.”

Santana blinked. “I have to go check on something with Brittany. Mercedes, you know where the living room is.”

She escaped to the kitchen where Brittany was stirring the sauce.

“Mercedes brought someone with her,” she said once she was within whispering distance. “A woman someone.”

Brittany turned, her surprise quickly turning to delight. “Really? I always hoped she would be next. She deserves a sweet, sweet girlfriend.” She took in the still-present shock on Santana’s face. “Awww. You didn’t see it coming, did you?”

Santana managed an incredulous laugh. “No. Possibly because my gaydar was so distracted by _wishful thinking_.” She frowned at Brittany. “Wait, you did?”

Brittany shook her head. “After we met Quinn and Quinn’s cute girlfriend, I just thought it would be fair.” She settled first her hands and then her chin on Santana’s shoulder. “Is she cute, too?”

“Understatement. She looks like a model. I never thought I was missing out by not reading fashion magazines.”

Maria, it turned out as they sat down to eat dinner, was not a model.

“I work for a small charity,” she said as Santana asked. “That’s actually how Mercedes and I met. She came to our fundraising gala and- We got talking.”

Santana barely managed to avoid making a lewd comment about the word choice. She didn’t follow Mercedes’s career beyond knowing her every song by heart and following her on Twitter, but she was fairly sure she would have heard if Mercedes had come out publicly, at least because there was no way Hummel wouldn’t have used the occasion as a pretext for a party.

She was rude and liked to create trouble, but there was a time and a place.

“So,” she said once dinner was done and Brittany and Maria had discovered their mutual knitting obsession and disappeared into the study where Brittany kept her yarns. “Something private to talk about, huh?”

Mercedes pursed her lips, but she was obviously trying to hide a smile. “Oh, get off it.”

“She seems great,” Santana volunteered. “I can see how she could help you re-evaluate stuff you thought about yourself.”

“It wasn’t her,” Mercedes said. “She’s just the first woman I ever- For real.”

Santana nodded. “Is it serious?”

Of course it was, Maria had just travelled to the other side of the country either to spend a few days with Mercedes in a rather public way or to meet Mercedes’s friends.

She watched as Mercedes swallowed. “Well, considering I’m about to risk my career by coming out to the press, I guess that qualifies?”

Santana looked down at her lap. “Yeah. That qualifies.” She swallowed. “If you- I guess what I’m trying to say that I may be a bitch and my advice is always shit, but I can listen, too.”

Mercedes gave her a smile. “Thanks. It’s nice to talk to someone who doesn’t think it’s a bad idea.”

Santana chuckled. “If you need it, I also provide homicide services for my most trusted customers.”

That got her a laugh. “Thanks, but no thanks. They’re good people, it’s just their job to point out all the sides of the problem I’d like to ignore.”

Santana had her thoughts about good people – she’d done her reading and lived her life long enough – but it didn’t seem worthwhile to start an argument about that.

“Well,” she said, “you know there’ll always be two people here who’d buy tickets to your show even if it was in a seedy bar at midday again. And I bet Kurt would buy out the whole place, after that.”

Mercedes smiled, and Brittany and Maria chose that moment to walk out of the study holding balls of yarn and discussing very large needles, and both Santana and Mercedes turned to awww at them.

—  
  


**Unique and Marley**

“Oh my god!”

She slammed the closet door closed, her hand still shielding her eyes, cursing the morning she’d let Blaine invite them to brunch and talk them into coming to the glee club reunion Rachel was so excited about organising.

“It makes me think of when we were in high school,” Brittany said, wrapping her arms around Santana’s waist. “I think it’s sweet.”

“She used to be a sweet baby-faced girl I mentored on my spare time.” Santana finally took her hand away from her face. “I didn’t need to see that tongue action.”

Brittany kissed her cheek. “Children grow up so fast.”

The closet door opened slowly, and Marley stepped out, blushing vigorously, quickly followed by Unique who seemed to have decided that hanging her head was for the ashamed.

“Well, well, well,” Santana said. “I see I don’t need to ask you two if you’ve met someone since we last saw each other.”

“Quit it, Santana.” Unique stared at her right back. “As if you haven’t done way worse. Besides, you have to appreciate the closet symbolism. We’re reclaiming it.”

“Yes, I could see that very clearly. You’re reclaiming it very enthusiastically.”

Marley took Unique’s hand and seemed to finally find the courage to look up. “We didn’t realise someone else would be coming this early.”

“Our flight landed a little early,” Santana said and allowed the prickliness to finally melt away a little. “Has this closet reclaiming business been going on for a long time?”

Unique looked away and smiled as Marley said, “Almost two years.”

Santana had no idea what to say to that – they were really sweet, she couldn’t bring herself to rain on their parade – but luckily Brittany grinned at her side.

“That’s not quite nine, but it’ll only take you over eight years to get there.”

“How do you guys even count?” Unique muttered, but luckily Jake and Ryder walked in, Finn in tow, and the ensuing awkwardness allowed Santana and Brittany to move away from the conversation.

—

It was later in the evening, when she’d tired her feet by dancing every song with Brittany and then laughed as she sent Brittany off to dance with Mike, the two being the only ones with no signs of tiredness yet, when she had to confront the thing again.

“So,” Unique said as she sat down next to Santana, “Marley is convinced that you’re scandalised or disgusted or whatever, instead of just being… you.”

Santana arched her eyebrows, but the words made something lurch uncomfortably in her stomach. “I’m not.”

“I know.” Unique fiddled with her scarf. “But if I had upset Brittany, would you just sit back and enjoy the open bar?”

“Yes.” Santana pursed her lips. “Except I would do it after I would have made sure that the only things going into your mouth for the next week were liquids through a straw.”

Unique pointed a finger at her. “Consider this your warning. Unless you just really like juice boxes.”

Santana sat up straighter. “Okay, listen. I like you, and I like your girlfriend, and she’s a total pushover so I feel a little protective about her in a very distant way. I’m happy you’re together, and only a little bit surprised it took you so long.”

Unique’s smile was surprisingly vulnerable. “Thanks, I guess.” She took a deep breath and tried to get back her assertive expression. “Now go tell her that before she cries in the bathroom.”

Santana spied Marley on the other side of the room, pretending to listen to Mr Schuester. She knew it was pretending because no one had ever listened to Mr Schuester even when he’d been their teacher.

“Excuse me, Mr Schuester,” she said as she marched there, “I have something urgent to say to Marley.”

Marley followed her willingly but with apprehension when Santana dragged her out of the room and into the hall, where she crowded Marley against a coat rack.

“Your girlfriend had a little chat with me.”

Marley blinked. “Sh- she did?”

“Yup. She’s great and beautiful and brave, and so are you.”

Marley blinked again. She didn’t take a single breath.

“I think you two are great together, but as your one-time mentor, I have to tell you that you better treat her right, respectfully and reverently or else I am going to have to do something neither one of us wants me to do.”

She moved away a foot, and Marley finally breathed in.

“I love her,” she said.

Santana managed a smile. “I know you do. I just can’t talk about love without threatening violence.”

“She can,” Brittany said from the door, and Marley took the chance to escape, although she was smiling as she did so.

Santana walked up to her and wrapped her arms around Brittany’s waist, burying her head against Brittany’s shoulder. “Only with you.”

“I know.” Brittany kissed her cheek. “You’re the best, and they’re playing the best song, so I thought we should dance.”

Her feet didn’t feel so tired all of a sudden, and she allowed Brittany to pull her back into the room, wrap her arms around Santana and guide her around the room to the tune of a slow, jarring song Santana didn’t recognise but which could have been badly-oiled chainsaws singing drunk karaoke.

At one point, they danced past Unique and Marley, doing pretty much the same thing. Santana’s eye caught Unique’s and they shared a small smile.

—  
  


**And Then There’s Rachel**

“No,” Brittany said as Santana’s eyes began to slowly blink open, “she is never available this early.”

The phone wasn’t on speaker, but she could hear the voice on the other end anyway. “But this is an emergency!”

Santana closed her eyes again, letting her head fall back on the pillow. Rachel only ever called her for one reason; to ruin her life. Not intentionally, and usually not very permanently, but that was always the end result.

Then again, she never called Brittany for any reason. Her wife shouldn’t have had to take the bullet from the gun Santana had foolishly aimed at herself when she’d agreed to being Rachel’s roommate in college.

“Give it to me,” she said, and Brittany obliged. “Don’t tell me you’re calling because the barista gave you regular milk, again.”

“I’m not. Your threats were quite clear.” Rachel took a long and very audible breath. “I need your advice. On a… Sapphic matter.”

Santana’s eyes flew open. She’d promised herself she would never again be surprised by an old glee friend’s coming out, but-

Rachel, with her ‘my gay dads’ and ‘my best gays’ and her habit of using obvious euphemisms for sexual orientations, was definitely a surprise.

“Fine,” she said, trying to make herself sound more pleasant and approachable. “What’s the matter?”

“My new co-star in the musical,” Santana could practically hear Rachel force herself not to say ‘for which I won a Tony for originating the female lead’, “and I had drinks last night. It is so good to foster camaraderie at the work place, I think it really shows in the performance.”

“Rachel.”

“Yes. She has, as you might know, recently left the confines of the closet and confined in me that it has been a little difficult. I immediately decided that as a champion of the performing arts, the only appropriate way to cheer up a fellow artist is to give her a rousing performance to remind her of the good in the world.”

Santana frowned. “And then?”

“That is the end of it. I was calling you to ask for a lesbian perspective on the song choice. Would you say that as an anthem for a generation, _I Kissed a Girl_ has the suitable-“

“Rachel,” Santana interrupted her and almost punched a pillow to let out her frustration. “First off, _I Kissed a Girl_ is a terrible song and offends me to my lesbian core. Secondly, I have no deep connection to your co-star’s musical tastes and personality just because we are both lesbians. And finally, you wanting to make yourself feel good by a gesture that may or may not be welcome to your co-worker is not a pressing emergency that warrants you to wake me up at seven am.”

She disconnected the call before she had the time to say anything else.

“Awww,” Brittany said and curled herself around Santana. It was the most effective anger remedy Santana had ever tried; how could she be mad at someone else when Brittany was there, so easy to love? “It’s good to have some constants, isn’t it?”

“You’re the maths genius here.” Santana pressed a quick kiss to Brittany’s lips. “I trust you.”

Brittany kissed her back, and Santana had already practically forgotten all about Rachel’s call, far interesting Sapphic business overtaking her brain, when Brittany pulled away a little and said, “Just in case, you should put your phone on silent.”

Santana laughed against her neck before reaching out to grab her phone, shutting it off completely and unceremoniously dumping it on her nightstand.

“You have the best ideas.”


End file.
